Martyria Part 11

VI.

The influence and value of pure and healthy air may be seen in the simplest physiological observations.

Animal life is fed and sustained by respiration, as well as vegetable life. It is from the blood that animal life derives the materials and forces which maintain it, and we have seen how this owes its vivifying properties, in a great measure, to the oxygen which it receives from the respiratory organs, and how its power is in direct ratio to the purity of the air breathed. A vitiated atmosphere manifests itself at once in the nutritive powers of the vital stream; and the more feeble the respiration, the less rich the blood. This "oxygen enters by the lungs into the blood, and with the blood flows on and circulates through the body; it also enters partly into the composition of the tissues, so that it is a real food, and it is as necessary to the construction of the human body as the other forms of food which are usually introduced into the stomach."

The weight of oxygen, says Professor Johnston, taken up by the lungs, exceeds considerably that of all the dry, solid food which is introduced into the stomach of a healthy man.

Man consumes one hundred gallons of air every hour, ordinarily with eighteen respirations per minute, and two hundred and six cubic feet of air is the minimum for the preservation of health. The minimum allowed to the English hospitals by artificial ventilation is twenty-two hundred cubic feet the hour. The patients of St. Guy's receive four thousand cubic feet of fresh air every hour. The quant.i.ty required by the sick is enormous, to compensate the products of respiration, and all the deleterious evaporations of the locality where they are placed, and all other effluvia of diverse natures. In the Hospital Lariboissaire, at Paris, where about fifteen hundred cubic feet of air are furnished by machinery every hour, a taint is perceptible in the atmosphere: and Morin, in his experiments at Hospital Beaujon, thought that two thousand cubic feet were hardly sufficient. Dr. Sutherland believes four thousand feet to be necessary. The quant.i.ty, however, is nothing compared to quality. The quality is of the highest importance. The air must contain the vivifying properties of its normal const.i.tution, or it loses force, and death must ensue. The source of animal heat is in the mutual chemical action of the oxygen and the const.i.tuents of the blood conveyed by the circulation. When the atmosphere is impure the oxidating processes are much diminished. We receive into our lungs about one hundred gallons of air per hour, and from this we absorb about five gallons of oxygen, or about one twentieth of the volume of air inspired.

"The essential and fundamental condition of all respiration is the reciprocal action of the nourishing fluid, and a medium containing oxygen." Dumas believes that oxygen is necessary to the conservation of the vitality and proper structure of the globules of the blood; also that the integrity of these organisms is one of the essential conditions to the arterialization of the nourishing stream.

Milne Edwards, also, maintains that the great absorbing powers of the blood exist in the globules. The normal number of these globules is one hundred and twenty-seven out of the thousand component parts of the blood; but they vary according to the barometer of health; sometimes they are observed in disease to descend to sixty-five. Vierodt has shown how a certain limit in the number of blood globules in the mammalia cannot be pa.s.sed in the descending scale without death taking place. Simon and others have also shown how a careful and nutritious regimen may increase these globules in the blood of the consumptive, bringing them up from sixty-four to even one hundred and forty-four.

The blood of man is the richest of all the mammalia, and it contains, according to Berzelius, three times as many hydrochlorates as the blood of the ox.

Its richness depends upon the species and individual, and also upon the degree of health, it varying according to the condition of the person.

"A diseased pathological condition causes a diminution in the proportion of active principles of the nourishing fluid, and especially in fibrine, of which the abundance is allied to the most important activity of the vital work in some parts of the organism." "The blood," says Dr. Jones, "is not only distributed by innumerable channels through every recess of the body; the blood is not only the source of all the elements of structure; the blood not only furnishes the materials for all the secretions and excretions, and for all the chemical changes,--but the blood is in turn affected by the physical and chemical changes of every vessel, of every nerve, of every organ and texture of the body. It is evident then that the const.i.tution of the blood will depend upon the food, upon the vigor and perfection of the organs of digestion, respiration, circulation, secretion, and excretion; upon the vigor and perfection of the nervous system, and of all the organs and apparatus; and upon the correlation of the physical, vital, and nervous forces. The character of the blood will then vary with the animal; with the organ and tissue through which it is circulating; with the age, s.e.x, temperament, race, diet, previous habits, occupation, and previous diseases; with the soil and climate; and with the relative states of the activity of the forces."

VII.

Thus it appears how important is the function of respiration, and how vital the necessity for pure air.

Pure dry air contains about 21 gallons of oxygen, and 79 gallons of nitrogen out of 100, and about one gallon of carbonic acid out of 2500.

Man will consume, on the average of 20 respirations a minute, or 1200 respirations the hour, about 20 pounds of air, and give off 2-1/2 pounds or more of carbonic acid, besides half a pound of watery vapor, per diem, or, according to Andral and Gavaret, 22 quarts of carbonic acid per hour.

We have shown in the chapter on Alimentation how this process of respiration affects the nutrition, and how serious the results of its disturbance. The purer the air, the more perfect the type of men and animals. This was understood by the ancients, and they established their most famous schools for gladiatorial training at Capua and Ravenna.

The same law is observed at the present day by the admirers of the race-horse. The purity of the air gives purity to the blood, and the blood builds up the system in like proportion of excellence.

VIII.

Fifteen hundred cubic inches, or twenty-two quarts, of carbonic acid are expired from the lungs every hour, and thrown off into the surrounding atmosphere. Besides this, Sequin found that 18 grains of organized matter were thrown off per minute from the body in the form of insensible perspiration,--7 grains by the lungs, and 11 grains by the skin. Hence we may form some idea of the rapid corruption of the air in this stockade, where 30,000 men were breathing at one time. The foul and heavy vapors could not rise above the palisades unless a strong breeze prevailed; and even then they became so offensive as almost to extinguish life, like the deadly air of the Grotta del Cane. The exhalations from putrescent animal surfaces are always specifically heavier than the upper warm strata in the confined s.p.a.ces where men are crowded together, such as the wards of hospitals. We find, according to Professor Graham, the vitiated air to be composed somewhat as follows: Phosph.o.r.etted hydrogen, sulphuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid, carburetted hydrogen, cyanogen with its compounds. The first gas is always recognized where the diseases of the internal organs are present, especially affections of the liver, stomach, bowels, and in fever and dysentery; and we observe the blackening of the lead plaster, &c., when the second is present. Stupor, headache, and sleepiness betray the presence of the other three gases. The diffusion of each gas is always inversely as the square root of the density of such gases.

The density is thus, air being regarded as 1000:--

Phosphuretted hydrogen, 1240 Sulphuretted " 1170 Carburetted " 559 Carbonic acid, 1524 Cyanogen, 1806

IX.

The report of the British Parliament Commission gives the following data in this important question: "The amount of carbonic acid in the air is about 1/2000 or .0005; the amount expired is about 1/12, or .083. Respired air contains 1/10 or 1 of carbonic acid, and this must be diluted ten times to make the air safe. Thus, 1/10 10/1 = 1/100, or .01; and this again divided by 10, or 1/100 10/1 = 1/1000 or .001, gives the amount of ventilation needed to reduce the air to that state of purity that only 1/1000 more of carbonic acid should be added to the air, when it would be represented by .0015 instead of .0005."

Observing this rule, and taking 300 cubic feet as the air respired for the 24 hours, to dilute it ten times it must be mixed with ten times the bulk, or 3000 cubic feet--the s.p.a.ce to be allowed for each individual; but if it is wished to keep up a pure air, it must be mixed with ten times this bulk again, or 30,000 cubic feet, which shows the ventilation needed to maintain an atmosphere nearly pure; or there must be admitted into the s.p.a.ce of 3000 cubic feet nearly 21 cubic feet per minute of fresh air by ventilation, if the man in it is to breathe an atmosphere which shall contain only three times more of carbonic acid than the air he breathes originally contained; or again, 300 cubic feet, 3000, and 30,000, mark the requirements of one individual, in 24 hours, for respiration, s.p.a.ce, and ventilation. On a calm day, when there were no strong breezes to change the air of the stockade, the entire quant.i.ty of air in the old stockade, allowing the palisades to be on the average 20 feet high, could be exhausted in 20 minutes by the 30,000 men respiring 300 cubic inches per minute. This is not a proper estimate to offer; but it will give a just idea of the rapid and fearful vitiation of the air that took place within the enclosure.

Vierodt shows how rapidly carbonic acid increases when foul air is breathed, and Lehman proves the rapid disengagement of the gas in moist atmospheres.

Symptoms of uneasiness manifest themselves when the air contains from 6/1000 to 7/1000 carbonic acid, and when the proportion amounts to ten parts to 100 of air, death ensues. "This effect is visible upon vegetables also, and many of them are extremely susceptible of impurities in the air, and very slight modifications in the proportion of its const.i.tuents are more or less prejudicial to their growth." But plants, like animals, vary in regard to the delicacy of their const.i.tutions, some being much more susceptible than others.

In warm climes the respiration becomes slower, and in consequence there is less of carbon burned and less oxygen absorbed; but on the other hand the functions of the skin become vastly increased, the bilious secretions become more active, and the excess of carbon is eliminated by this channel.

That we expire more carbonic acid in a warm, moist atmosphere, and less in a cold, dry climate, is shown by the exhilaration of our spirits on a fine frosty morning.

No wonder that men lost their reason in this prison, for the blood no longer reddened from the imperfect arterialization, and burdened the brain with its effete matter, paralyzing and clogging up the delicate filaments and the narrow channels of thought and life.

We have seen that the blood is subject to incessant variations in its precise chemical const.i.tution; a free atmosphere, well supplied, oxygenates and destroys the numerous impurities that tend to lurk in the system and develop disease.

Bichat shows, in his researches on life and death, how the black and carbonized blood disturbs the functions of the brain and acts like a narcotic poison, causing the heart finally to cease its throbbings.

These miasms and poisons floated about the enclosure where there was not the least sign of vegetable organism to absorb and convert them. As they pa.s.sed into the systems of the prisoners they became the cause of disease, decrepitude, and death.

X.

Vitiated air is one of the most subtile and powerful of poisons, and it seems to affect soldiers more than any other cla.s.s of persons, and its consequences have been commented upon by most of the military writers,--from Xenophon among the Greeks, Vegetius among the Romans, down to those of the present time. Cavalry horses have been observed to suffer deterioration and death from the same cause.

Ague and fever, states Dr. Johnson, "two of the most prominent features of the malarious influences, are as a drop of water in the ocean when compared with the other, but less obtrusive, but more dangerous maladies that silently disorganize the vital structure of the human fabric under the influence of this deleterious and invisible poison."

One fourth of the sailors of the English navy are sent home invalided every year, and one tenth of them die from the effects of foul air of their cabins. "Two thirds of the pulmonary diseases which desolate England are induced by this cause." Baudelocque long ago pointed out its influences in the etiology of scrofula.

It is really the same influence observed by Magendie, and not contradicted to the present day, that putrid blood, brain, bile, or pus, when laid on flesh wounds, produce in animals, after a longer or shorter interval, vomiting, languor, and death. The same results and phenomena are observed in the inspiration of bad air; the most terrible forms of fever arise from the overcrowding of people in confined and limited s.p.a.ces. Most of the zymotic diseases enter by the lungs, which are the princ.i.p.al absorbing agents.

The breathing in of foul air, loaded with perceptible and putrid animal and vegetable emanations, gives rise to those zymotici, the ideas of which originated with Hippocrates, and to which the distinguished Liebig has since given form and prominence.

Not only is animal life disturbed and destroyed, but we observe that vegetables even are affected by the same or similar causes; that they are extremely susceptible of impurities in the air, and that the rapidity and vigorous appearance of their growth are affected whenever there is very slight modification in the healthy proportions of the atmosphere. Again, we see how seeds, when placed in elementary oxygen, germinate with extreme rapidity, and soon decay, thus indicating how the presence of nitrogen in the natural air restrains the force of the other element.

XI.

There was another serious defect in the management of the prison, and that was, the neglect to provide the means for entire ablution, which, in warm climes, becomes an imperative necessity. "Animals perspire, that they may live;" and this function is as necessary to a healthy life as either breathing or digestion: the skin, like the lungs, gives off carbonic acid and absorbs oxygen. But it differs from the lungs in giving off a much larger bulk of the former gas than it absorbs of the latter. The quant.i.ty of carbonic acid which escapes varies with circ.u.mstances. It is sometimes equal to one thirtieth, and sometimes amounts to only a ninetieth part of that which is thrown off from the lungs, but generally it amounts to 100 grains daily. But exercise and hard labor increase the evolution of carbon from the skin, as it does from the lungs. A large quant.i.ty of nitrogen also escapes by the skin.

Hence we may infer the effect upon the prisoners, from the want of ablution, and the means of removing the acc.u.mulating filth of their bodies. The functions of the skin, and their influence in the practical feeding of animals, have been carefully studied by the experimentalists, and they have observed that the difference in washed and unwashed animals, during the process of fattening, amounts to one fifth.

Pure air and the enforcement of daily ablutions having been introduced into some of the English schools, the sick rate was reduced two thirds. A general of a beleaguered city in Spain was obliged to put his soldiers on short allowance, and compelled them to bathe daily in order to amuse them, when he found, to his surprise, that they became in better condition than when on full rations.

Chadwick states, in his papers on Economy, that "amongst soldiers of the line who have only hands and face washing provided for, the death-rate is upwards of 17 per 1000."

When sent into prisons where there is a far lower diet, sometimes exclusively vegetable, and without beer or spirits, but where regular head to foot ablutions and cleanliness of clothes, as well as of persons, are enforced, their health is vastly increased, and the death-rate is reduced to 2-1/2 per 1000.

XII.

It appears from the mortuary records of the prison that 13,000 men were registered and buried during the year of its occupation. It also appears from the same hospital lists that 17,873 men received medical treatment, or were known to be sick, and their names entered in the books. Of these, 825 men were exchanged, leaving 17,048 to be accounted for; thus giving a mortality of more than 76 per cent., or 760 men out of every thousand.

It is said, and stated with confidence, that the names of the 4000 soldiers who died in their mud-holes within the pen, and who did not generally receive any medical treatment whatever, were placed upon the hospital register, and their diseases diagnosed after death and removal from the stockade. But of this the writer is not positive, although he has seen tables of statistics of certain periods of the prison, where it is shown that every patient who was treated for disease perished.